Thanks for your feedback @aristarchus. A few responses below and suggestions for our final poll:
The Foundation board (and I) did not ignore the support behind this proposal. It’s listed as one of the leading proposals in our initial analysis, and our lack of support (and support for ZIP 1012) is explained succinctly in the relevant paragraph from that post:
These proposals share two qualities that we believe the community finds important: a 20% dev fund and significant funding for the ZF and ECC. However ZIP 1013 differs with regards to accountability and the explicit financial development of external developers. The Foundation feels strongly about accountability and transparency — as stated in our original guidelines in August — as well as third party developer support and growth. Two of the three proposals that received the strongest community support align with that view; it’s clear there’s strong sentiment for both more accountable and decentralized Zcash development.
Therefore the Foundation will build on ZIP 1012, a version of Matt Luongo’s ZIP 1011 with modifications by Eran Tromer, which received the most support on the forum and Community Advisory Panel.
As you yourself admit, it makes sense to build on ZIP 1012 as the proposal that received the most support. And as @tromer mentioned, it’s not clear how these proposals could be combined particularly given the accountability and third-party developer requirements requested from both the Foundation and the broader community…and the main concern you have about underfunding the ECC is arguably better served by them having the possibility for more funds as stated by @tromer:
All of which to say: I promise we didn’t ignore ZIP 1013.
Summarizing your other concerns, with responses below:
- There’s bias from me suggesting integration of my (admittedly reasonably supported proposal) with ZIP 1012
- You believe the Foundation should have more power in determining/vetoing Major Grants
- You want to explore other percentages of distribution for the various slices
My and the Foundation’s bias
Everyone is biased, myself very much included. But I hope that the community recognizes that the initial improvements the Foundation suggested from my ZIP 1010 served to reduce the Foundation’s power, particularly with regards to grant selection. After the community feedback earlier this week, we scaled back our changes considerably and gave the Foundation more power (namely in administering the Community Advisory Panel) but the Foundation still has preference in reducing our ability to countermand major grant decisions.
Granting the Foundation More Power (for Major Grants)
I have mixed feelings about this. As @ChileBob suggested there could be a veto in the case that the Foundation believes it violates community consensus or the Foundation’s mission? Providing a final veto for arbitrary reasons seems dangerous to me, particularly as we’re seeking to broadly distribute funds outside of the Foundation (sentiment which seemed widely supported by our interpretation of the results). And there’s already a veto for some circumstances (violating Foundation’s operating docs and/or US law).
I think a way to gauge this is to add something similar to @dontbeevil’s poll to the final Helios vote which is broader; I think this makes sense given the discussion here.
Other distribution options for various slices
I understand the point you’re making, and perhaps giving people various choices in the final vote for the percentage distribution could offer us greater insight in the community’s support, which I expect would solve the biggest issue you have.
However I do take exception with the bolded suggestion you make regarding percentages: in none of the leading proposals did the Foundation receive less than 25% of the dev fund for its own operations, and you’re suggesting a new percentage that has no precedent or community support. (In the top three proposals, those numbers were 25%, 30%, and 50%)
It just seems strange to suggest that you trust and support the Foundation more than our modified ZIP 1012 suggests, but then anchor anyone reading this thread to reduce the funding the Foundation has for general operations in a way that’s not supported by the community.
So instead, I would suggest offering these options for the final vote, which still minimizes the funding the Foundation receives for its own operations based on the most supported proposal:
| ECC | MG | ZF |
|---|---|---|
| 35% | 40% | 25% |
| 40% | 35% | 25% |
| 45% | 30% | 25% |
| 50% | 25% | 25% |
In essence, this scales the amount the ECC is guaranteed versus what’s available for third parties, from 35% all the way up to the 50% advocated in the “Keep it Simple” proposal.
FWIW, I personally think the more the ECC receives as a guaranteed portion of their slice the less eligible they should be for the MG slice, but as that wasn’t part of any proposal (and that’s quite hard to prescribe) I won’t push for that change. However I hope the future grant review committee/Foundation-appointed body takes that into consideration when distributing those funds if the community agrees to increase the guaranteed amount received by the ECC.
Improvements to the Final Helios Poll
In final summary, I think all of these concerns can be ameliorated within the context of the final Helios poll, which will merge the eligible participants from the forum poll (71 users) and the existing community advisory panel (62 users). For all these users we will attempt to remove duplicates if we can determine identity.
We will ask three questions:
“Do you support the modified ZIP 1012 presented here?”
- Yes
- No
- Abstain
“Using modified ZIP 1012 as a basis, what should the distribution of the dev fund slices be?”
- ECC: 35%, MG: 40%, ZF: 25%
- ECC: 40%, MG: 35%, ZF: 25%
- ECC: 45%, MG: 30%, ZF: 25%
- ECC: 50%, MG: 25%, ZF: 25%
“Do you believe the Foundation should have independent authority in determining Major Grants, or should there be a new Major Grant Review Committee as prescribed in modified ZIP 1012 as currently written?”
- Yes
- No
- Abstain
From the results of this poll we can assemble a final modification of ZIP 1012.
Note that the Foundation hasn’t yet collected specific feedback from the ECC on our modified ZIP 1012, so we may make additional changes prior to the poll which may materially change these questions. But I think this structure of polling could provide greater insight into the community’s preferences on some critical pieces of ZIP 1012 without changing the fundamental tenets of (widely-approved) ZIP 1012. Thoughts and feedback welcome.